George Arthur Craig GARDINER

Regimental number1110
Date of birth8 September 1888
Place of birthDubbo, New South Wales
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationStoreman
AddressHarvey Street, Prospect, South Australia
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation27
Next of kinWife, Mrs Theresa Lavinia Gardiner, c/o Mrs F. L. Rushton, Gordon Road, Prospect, South Australia
Enlistment date22 March 1916
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name43rd Battalion, D Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/60/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A19 Afric on 9 June 1916
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll43rd Battalion
Recommendations (Medals and Awards)

Distinguished Conduct Medal

FateKilled in Action 30 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death from cemetery records28
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), Belgium

The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave.

The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936.

Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign.

Panel number, Roll of Honour,
  Australian War Memorial
136
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Robert and Annie GARDINER; husband of Mrs T.L. GARDINER, 4 Gloucester Street, Prospect, South Australia. Native of Dubbo, New South Wales~
Medals

Distinguished Conduct Medal

'For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He took command of a raiding party when the officer was killed, and led them through intense rifle and machine gun fire until compelled to take shelter in shell holes. He remained for some time attending to the wounded, later working his way back to the front line, and personally conducting stretcher parties to bring in the dead and wounded men. By his courage and resourcefulness he set a splendid example.'
Source: 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 219
Date: 20 December 1917

Other details

War service: Western Front

Medals: Distinguished Conduct Medal, British War Medal, Victory Medal